Sometimes, especially when I am really tired or bored, I do enjoy watching action movies. It is a deliberate effort to help the brain to relax. For past few weeks, I can sense the aggressive advertisements and campaigns run by different e-tailers to empty out the pockets of customers as deeply as possible on the occasion of Diwali. Personally, I do not have any problem with people spending money and buying things online. Many of these ads directly hit on the typical Indian mindset- of using old stuff in the house carefully and preserving it for a long period. All these sellers have realized one basic fact- new stuff wont go in the houses unless the old stuff comes out.
In short, let it be Snapdeal or Amazon or any other e-tailer; they simply want you to buy more and will compel you to do anything- from throwing in the trash the old things that are working fine to give brand new cloths to your maids and staff so that you buy more from them. Though this type of marketing promotes consumerism, I am still okay with that. Everyone wants us to buy more and at a higher frequency and products are being designed to fail fast. I wont blame e-tailers for influencing the mentality of people in such a manner.
What I do object is something more subtle. In order to sell more, sellers are falsely overstating the importance of material objects in our lives. Buying a new cell phone or a television with a bigger screen does nothing to make you happy and contended. It rather makes you further greedy- now you want even bigger one. Buying something cannot help you unbox your life; rather, it creates an object dependent mindset which actually puts you in a box and your entire life goes in the pursuit of enlarging the box.
It is a well known fact that shopping is a stress buster. In reality, it is a lie. Shopping is not a stress buster. Shopping, in reality, is like a pesticide; it kills the pest temporarily but the pest gets strengthened and the pesticide turns ineffective. You are again in search of a stronger pesticide. The cycle continues. The hollowness inside cannot be filled using the stuff available outside for sale.
How can we unbox our life in the true sense? Again, an answer from outside wont help. The only answer is- look within!
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